Abstract
The essay takes off from current controversies about Communism, and on the relative weight of its cultural, political and economic components. The discussion then moves, in light of recent historical scholarship, to problems of conceptualizing the revolutionary process that gave rise to Soviet Communism. A strong emphasis is placed on the singularity of the Russian revolution, and on the limits to general theories of revolution. Hasegawa’s revised work on the February revolution of 1917 is discussed at some length, and his interpretation of that event as an interaction between popular and liberal forces is accepted. The following months saw the emergence of multiple revolutionary movements, but also the strengthening of an organization and an alternative leadership with a project different from the main currents of the revolution, but capable of conquering power through a selective mobilization of revolutionary forces. The presuppositions of Bolshevism are analyzed, as well as the implications of its victory. The essay finishes with reflections on Stalinism and its roots in the revolutionary process.
Highlights
The essay takes off from current controversies about Communism, and on the relative weight of its cultural, political and economic components
Following the Weberian maxim that emerging historical constellations open up new perspectives on their past, the discussion below will examine the genesis of the Soviet model in light of later destinies, with reference to issues noted above: the multiple mutations that put an end to Communism as an integral regime, retrospective questions about its cultural, political or economic core, and to the specific problems posed by a geopolitical frame of reference
To introduce the new perspectives, a quote from Dominic Lieven’s book on imperial Russia and the war seems apt: “A basic point about the First World War” is that “contrary to the near-universal assumption in the English-speaking world, the war was first and foremost an eastern European conflict [...] The great irony of the First World War was that a conflict which began more than anything else as a struggle between the Germanic powers and Russia to dominate east central Europe ended in the defeat of both sides” [Lieven 2016: 2]
Summary
The vision of an end to history, or more precisely a definitive triumph of “liberal democracy” over all conceivable alternatives, was based on strong assumptions about a certain counter-history having run its course. As for American influence, a very different view is taken in one of the most ambitious reinterpretations of early twentieth-century history, Adam Tooze’s book on the “reconstitution of global order” between 1916 and 1931 [Tooze 2015] In this perspective, the defining aspect of global constellation after World War I was “the painful fact that the United States was a power unlike any other. Following the Weberian maxim that emerging historical constellations open up new perspectives on their past, the discussion below will examine the genesis of the Soviet model in light of later destinies, with reference to issues noted above: the multiple mutations that put an end to Communism as an integral regime, retrospective questions about its cultural, political or economic core, and to the specific problems posed by a geopolitical frame of reference. To clarify the context of these transformations, we must take a closer look as historical landmarks
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